


This Means War

by karasunovolleygays



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Boys Are Dumb, Frenemies to Friends, Gen, High School First Years, Mild Injury, Petty Squabbling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22196137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karasunovolleygays/pseuds/karasunovolleygays
Summary: Kuroo Tetsurou was stuck staying over at a friend's house for a few months while his parents had business abroad. That would have been fine — if said 'friend' hadn't turned out to be Daishou Suguru, the very opposite of a friend.After weeks of petty squabbling and juvenile pranks, could the two of them manage to come to an understanding, or at least a ceasefire?
Relationships: Daishou Suguru & Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 4
Kudos: 65





	This Means War

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jellyryans (ryankellycc)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryankellycc/gifts).



> Colleen! I'm so sorry you had to wait forever for your gift. Please accept this humble offering of boys being stupid and rude to each other!

“You’re kidding, right?” Tetsurou fixed his mother with his most pathetic pleading look, hoping that this conversation was a misunderstanding or joke, rather than an imminent reality. 

Mrs. Kuroo shook her head and sighed. “Tetsu, I don’t know why you’re so upset about this. We told you six months ago that we were going on this trip, and you had no problem with the idea then.”

“That was then.” Tetsurou scrubbed his face with his hand and groaned. “Mom, I don’t mind that you’re both going. Doctors Without Borders is awesome and I’m really proud of you and Dad for doing it. It’s just —” Murs Kuroo raised a brow and his shoulders sagged as he admitted, “That was before I had to go stay with Daishou.”

“Is that what this is about?” Mrs. Kuroo rolled her eyes and dropped heavily on the couch. “What’s wrong with staying with the Daishous? You and Suguru-kun have been friends for years, haven’t you?”

Tetsurou melted onto the seat next to her and buried his face in his hands. “Not really. We’re less Batman and Robin and more Batman and Joker.”

“Sweetie, that’s ridiculous.” Hugging his arm, patted his knee. “I know you’d rather stay with Kenma-kun, but between him still being in middle school and his parents also being away a lot, staying with the Daishous is a better choice.”

The logic was sound and the arrangements were already made. His only option from this point was to throw a fit until his parents either took him with them (which he didn’t want to do with volleyball club in full swing), canceled their trip, or — “Hey, why can’t I just stay by myself?”

From Mrs. Kuroo’s snort of laughter, Tetsurou reckoned that option had been examined and summarily dismissed. “Tetsu, you’re fifteen. I’m not leaving you here alone for three months. What if something happens? Are you just going to wait for Kenma-kun to notice? And both you and Suguru-kun play volleyball and are taking similar classes. You’ll have a built in study buddy and someone to talk shop with.”

“I —” Tetsurou closed his eyes and let the will to press on leach out of him. His parents only had a few days before they took off to Haiti for three months. He didn’t want to spend those last few days at odds with them. Nobody would enjoy that. “Fine. I’ll stay with the Daishous and I promise to do my best to be a model guest.”

Mrs. Kuroo pecked a kiss to his cheek and grinned. “You’re a good boy, Tetsu. Your father and I will feel a lot better knowing you’re not here alone. Now get packed.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going.” Tetsurou moped his way up the stairs to gather the necessities for spending 120 days, three months, one quarter of an entire year with the devil himself.

***

“Tetsu-kun, it’s so nice to see you again,” cooed Mrs. Daishou as she greeted him at the door with a bracing hug. “My, you certainly have sprouted up in the past couple of years.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Tetsurou offered with a pinched smile. It wasn’t her fault her son was evil incarnate, and she was opening her home to him for months on end. He would do his level best to be the perfect houseguest for her, even if that included abstaining from smothering her son in his sleep. “How are you, Daishou-san?”

Mrs. Daishou chattered on about trivial goings-on in the family while she shepherded him into the house and up the stairs. He knew when they were at Suguru’s room; the sinister aura told him that. 

Pasting a smile onto his face, Tetsurou managed a polite, “Thank you so much, Daishou-san. Your generosity is inspiring.”

Mrs. Daishou blushed a charming shade of pink. “Nonsense. Happy to have you.” She knocked on the door, putting an end to the metallic sound of music wafting from laptop speakers. “Sugurin! Your friend is here.”

Something inside the room crashed, and a petty, petty part of him relished that Suguru was likely as unhappy about this arrangement as Tetsurou was. The door creaked open, and a slimy smile greeted them both. “Tetsu-chan, how nice to see you!”

“Turn that racket off and help Tetsu-kun settle in. Dinner is at seven.” With that, Mrs. Daishou dismissed herself, leaving Tetsurou face to face with the most obnoxious person on the planet.

Suguru eyed him and smirked. “Are you ready to talk about boys and braid each other’s hair?”

“Eat shit and die,” Tetsurou muttered, pushing past Suguru and into the room, snide laughter nipping right at his heels

It was an average room for a teenage boy. The walls were lined with posters of crappy rock bands and half naked women, the bed was unmade, the air had a faint scent of old socks, and the tissue box was empty. On the floor was a trundle bed designed to slide underneath another bed while not in use. It was small — very small. 

Tetsurou closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He needed to make the best of this catastrophe of a situation, and that included not complaining to himself to keep reminding him how much he did not want to be there. Instead, he sat down on the bed and splayed himself out. 

This was not better.

With his head right up against the edge of the mattress, the lower half of his calves protruded in excess over the other end. The width only accommodated from his elbows in, his forearms dangling from the sides. 

He rolled around every which way to find a comfortable angle where at least the majority of his body was on the bed, but none of them met even the most basic of criteria. Finally, he lay facedown with his face shoved into the pillow and fought the urge to scream into the stuffing. Somehow, this was the least terrible position he could manage, and he hated sleeping on his belly.

“Looks like you’re right at home,” Suguru crowed. He ‘tripped’ over one of Tetsurou’s protruding legs and teetered dramatically onto his own bed, which was normal-person sized even though Suguru was ten centimeters shorter than him. 

When he landed, it accommodated his body and the resulting sigh of contentment. “Do you have enough leg room down there, Tetsu-chan?”

“Fine,” Tetsurou hissed through clenched teeth. “And you know I hate that name.”

Suguru propped himself onto his elbow and sneered down at Tetsurou. “Oh, do you? Mama’s going to miss calling you that. She thinks it’s cute.”

Tetsurou took a deep breath and counted to ten. When that didn’t relieve his tattered nerves, he did it again until it was. Twelve repetitions later, he finally said, “Look, there’s no reason for us to make each other miserable. There’s no getting out of this, so if you could possibly scrape up the decency to call a ceasefire, both of us will benefit.”

Fingers drumming on his thigh and lips pursed in thought, Daishou replied, “Nah. This is war and you know it.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.” Tetsurou let himself melt into the mattress until his back started protesting the lack of support. 

Suguru had resumed whatever he had been doing on his laptop before Tetsurou arrived, the irritating music once again flooding the room. The only thing Tetsurou could do was unpack and hope for a quick and painless death via rogue comet or alien invasion.

Dinner was the least harrowing part of the day. Mr. and Mrs. Daishou were kind and cheerful people, a trait that did not manage to make it to the next branch of the family tree. However, Suguru was held at bay and the food was excellent. As both of his parents worked erratic hours at the nearby hospital, Tetsurou was often left to his own devices when it came to food, which ended up being takeout, instant noodles, or dubious concoctions cobbled together with whatever raw ingredients he could find.

Once the meal concluded, Tetsurou gathered the dishes and took them to the sink. Mrs. Daishou’s eyes widened when he did. “Oh, Tetsu-chan, you don’t have to do that.”

 _It’s better than holing up with your evil spawn_ , he thought darkly before dousing that remark with good sense and decorum. “I’m happy to help out, Daishou-san. I wouldn’t be much of a guest if I didn’t pull my own weight, now would I?”

As she bustled away to do whatever normal moms did with their day, Tetsurou dragged out the smattering of dishes as long as possible to avoid going back upstairs. He also managed to sweep the floor and take out the garbage before Mrs. Daishou finally chased him out of the kitchen.

“This is your first night over. You shouldn’t spend it doing chores.” Mrs. Daishou corralled him toward the stairs. “Now shoo. You and Suguru have fun.”

Tetsurou’s smile was plastic and fake and it made his entire face hurt. “You bet, Okaa-san. You and Otou-san have a good rest of your evening.”

Mrs. Daishou practically floated back to the couch with Mr. Daishou, cooing the entire way. A smirk replaced Tetsurou’s pained smile as he took his time going up the steps. He may not have wanted to wage war with Suguru, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enlist some insurance to deflect some of the damage.

Upstairs, Suguru lay on his bed with his phone over his face, thumbs flying on the screen. Who would talk to that greasy snake in the grass on purpose, Tetsurou had no idea nor did he care. Instead, he sat on the floor on the opposite side of the room and pulled out his biology textbook.

Right in the middle of outlining the current biology chapter, a thought struck Tetsurou like a bolt of dastardly lightning. “Eh, Daishou, who are you texting, your _girlfriend_.”

Expecting Suguru to give some sort of smarmy retort, Tetsurou was surprised when Suguru flushed bright red from the neck up. “Oh, so it _is_ your girlfriend?”

“Shut up,” Suguru snapped before going back to his messaging. “You wouldn’t know what to do with a girlfriend even if one did decide you weren’t too ugly to go out with.”

“Definitely a girlfriend.” Putting away his book, he crept across the room and snatched Suguru’s phone. He was definitely texting, and judging by the messages she was definitely someone he liked That Way. “Oh, so Mika-chan is your girlfriend?”

Suguru vaulted off his bed and lunged for his phone. “Give it back.” When Tetsurou held it high overhead until the phone was almost touching the ceiling, Suguru launched himself like he was going in for a block or a spike, but Tetsurou’s superior height still kept it just out of reach.

He could barely contain a snort watching Suguru leap like an angry puppy to retrieve his phone. At last, he grew weary of their little game of keepaway. “Oh, did you want this back, _Sugurin_?” He tossed Suguru’s phone onto his bed. “All you had to do was ask.”

Tetsurou went back to his studying, hiding his grin behind his textbook while Suguru quietly fumed across the room. He held onto the heady feeling of victory until he finally fell asleep with his limbs sticking out at odd angles from the tiny bed.

As Suguru had said, it was indeed war between them.

Similar tiffs were a relentless part of Tetsurou’s time at his home away from home. When Suguru monopolized the bathroom in the morning before school even though Tetsurou’s bus left the area first, Tetsurou answered with saving his longest, rankest dump for their shared toilet and left the fan off when he was done. 

He howled with laughter at the sight of Suguru racing out of the bathroom with his hand over his mouth as he gagged. It was Suguru’s turn to be amused at his expense when he woke up to the sensation of the Daishous’ cat licking what smelled like tuna from the pad of his bare foot.

The final straw came a little bit more than a month into his stay.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and Mr. and Mrs. Daishou were out for a date night together, leaving the two of them alone. As soon as the door shut behind them, Suguru threw Tetsurou’s shoes at him and stuck his tongue out. “Now get lost.”

Tetsurou had already planned on trekking over to his own neighborhood to see Kenma, but the tone of Daishou’s voice triggered his newly honed fight response. “Don’t wanna.”

“I mean it, Kuroo!” Daishou’s fists balled at his sides, which certainly caught Tetsurou’s attention. Suguru remained eerily calm during their bouts of domestic warfare with one exception: when Mika was somehow involved. 

That made Tetsurou’s entire body tingle with glee. “Oh, were you and Mika-chan hoping for some _alone_ time?”

“No,” Suguru said too quickly, and Tetsurou knew he had hit the mark. 

“Then you wouldn’t mind if I texted her and asked if she wanted to come over for the evening?” Tetsurou had managed to confiscate Mika’s phone number and committed it to memory, and he knew he was fast enough to elude Suguru until he could successfully send a message. “Do you think Mika-chan likes the soba noodles from the place down the street?

Tetsurou was just barely fast enough to slip Suguru’s grip as he charged across the room. Having had his run of the house for enough time to learn its nooks and crannies, Tetsurou took off. A kitchen chair tipped onto its back as Suguru tried to follow Tetsurou under the table. The cat barely dodged two rampaging teenage boys as they barrelled up the stairs to continue the chase.

Tetsurou was fast, but Suguru was quicker in changing direction and finally tackled Tetsurou on the floor in front of their beds. Grasping to bat away Tetsurou’s phone, Suguru flailed on top of him muttering all the while, stymied by Tetsurou’s superior arm strength and reach. 

“Damn it, Tetsu, knock it off!”

“Don’t wanna.”

“I mean it! Screw whatever you want to me, but leave Mika-chan out of it.”

Suguru’s plea gave Tetsurou pause. “You must really like her, don’t you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be on your hands and knees, begging me to spare her from our private little war.”

That Suguru was, indeed, on his hands and knees lit an increasingly short fuse. “I said knock it —”

A swipe at Tetsurou missed its mark. Suguru’s eyes flew open when his wrist collided with the corner of his bed frame. Almost instantly, Suguru spidered away and cradled his wrist, and he bit his lip to keep from crying out.

“Oh shit.” Their game forgotten, Tetsurou rummaged through his volleyball bag for trainer’s tape. He sat next to Suguru and said, “Here, let me see it.”

“Go to hell.” Suguru attempted to sneer, but it came out as a grimage. “Damn it.”

Tetsurou growled under his breath and huffed. “Will you just — let me look at it, Suguru. We need to make sure nothing’s broken.”

At the word ‘broken’, Suguru blanched. “If I jack up my wrist this early in the year, there’s no way I’m getting a chance to start. Fuck.” After staring at the angry red bump on his wrist, Suguru reluctantly held out his arm. “Fine.”

With his usual position of middle blocker, Tetsurou had received his fair share of stoved fingers and twisted wrists. That, along with two parents who were doctors who could patch up nearly everything at home, Tetsurou knew his way around the average injury. 

His fingers softly probed the affected area, earning a hissed obscenity from Suguru, but definitely not the kind one would expect from a fractured bone. “Nothing’s broken. I think you have a bruised bone, though. You’re gonna want to ice and splint it to keep from pissing that spot off more.”

“This is all your fault.” Suguru glared at him, his lower lip thrust out into a pout. 

Tetsurou raised a brow. “Oh, really? Then you _weren’t_ trying to tackle me. That would be a terrible idea. I’m way bigger than you.”

Suguru opened his mouth, but it snapped shut while Tetsurou fashioned a splint out of a couple of old wooden charms left over from New Years Day three years before. Once it was dressed, Suguru stayed still while Tetsurou fetched a bag of ice from downstairs. “Here. When it melts, change it out for a new one. I’ll change the splint in the morning.”

When Tetsurou was halfway out the door, Suguru called, “Hey, where are you going?”

“Oh, I’m going over to Kenma’s today. I’ll be back around nine.” The door clicked closed behind him, but the rush of victory he had expected after thwarting Suguru’s ploy to get him out of the house didn’t come. Instead, he cast a guilty glance at the door behind him and wondered when that habit had started.

At Kenma’s place, they played video games like they usually did and ate pizza, but Tetsurou’s gameplay was even shoddier than usual because he kept looking at the clock and noticing that nine was a long way away.

“You’re pensive today,” Kenma remarked while chopping Tetsurou’s character in half with a battle ax.

“Yeah.” Tetsurou tried to revive his player, but he had already used his last extra life and it was game over. “Damn it.”

Kenma raised a brow. “Since when are you upset when I beat you? You always lose this game.”

“It’s not that.” Tetsurou put his controller down and raked his fingers through his already mussed hair. “Daishou fucked up his wrist, I think it might be my fault, and I feel guilty not being there even though he was begging me to leave earlier.”

“Oh, that.” Kenma set his own controller aside and exchanged it for a fresh slice of pizza. “You can go home. I won’t be upset.”

Tetsurou had a ‘but I’ll be upset’ on the tip of his tongue before it petered out. He was already upset; he knew it and so did Kenma. “You sure you don’t mind?”

“Nope. Go take care of your friend, Kuro.”

Wincing at the word, Tetsurou was already backing away even as he retorted, “Nope. Hate that word. Stop before I spew pizza all over your porch.”

Kenma chuckled and waved him off, and Tetsurou found himself running to the nearest bus stop to catch the line that was just about to roll through the area. 

When he returned, Tetsurou found Suguru on the couch, staring at the blank television while nursing his injury. “Hey, you feeling any better.”

Suguru didn’t answer, which made Tetsurou’s gut churn with apprehension. “Suguru?” He knelt in front of Suguru and flinched when he saw red eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“I hate you,” Suguru croaked, but the usual venom behind the words was missing. “It’s barely five. What the hell are you doing here?”

Tetsurou took a seat on the couch next to Suguru. “Kenma kicked me out because I kept kicking his ass at Mortal Kombat.”

“Yeah, right.” Suguru scoffed. “You’ve never beaten Kozume at a video game yet, and you’re not about to start now.”

Tetsurou chuckled. “I can’t even argue with that.” Letting out a long sigh, he admitted, “I came home because I was worried about you.”

Suguru gaped at him, his entire visage still one of misery. “You were worried about me?”

“Eh, knock it off.” Tetsurou fought off a smile. “It sounds worse when you say it, and if you keep saying it, we’re both gonna puke.”

Silent while Tetsurou examined his wrist again, Suguru moved every which way he was commanded. At last, the wrapping was refreshed and the red had started to seep from both Suguru’s wrist and his face. 

“I’ll scare up some dinner.” He patted Suguru’s thigh and headed for the kitchen with a curt little wave. “If you’re going to haunt me, at least keep out of the way.”

As expected, Suguru followed him into the kitchen and watched his every move while he rummaged through cabinets for ingredients he actually knew how to use. Half an hour later, twin piles of slightly burnt fried rice sat next to steaming cups of tea and instant miso soup.

“Eat up,” Tetsurou ordered. “You’ll need extra protein for your bone to heal, and pork rice is supercharged with protein.” He started rambling about the various protein strands in their meal until Suguru cut him off with a giggle. “What?”

“Nerd.”

“Yeah, you’re not wrong.”

The rest of the meal passed in peace, and the ceasefire Tetsurou had hoped for when he first arrived seemed to slowly be coming around.

***

“Oh, Tetsu-kun, the house won’t be the same without you.” Mrs. Daishou embraced him, and Tetsurou returned the gesture with genuine affection. “Feel free to come by anytime.”

“I will, Daishou-san.” He shook Mr. Daishou’s hand and bowed. “Thank you for opening your home to me.”

Mr. Daishou beamed at him, and Tetsurou imagined Suguru got his smile from his dad. He had even seen the slime free version a time or two in the previous month or two — ever since they came to their understanding after the Wrist-cident.

Suguru was upstairs, refusing to be ‘subjected to an emotional scene’, but Tetsurou caught sight of him looking out the window as Mr. and Mrs. Kuroo stowed Tetsurou’s bags in the car. 

Tetsurou blew a kiss up to Daishou’s window and laughed when he got a rude gesture in response. He was grinning when he settled into the back seat of the car. “I’m actually gonna miss that guy,” Tetsurou thought out loud, and his parents exchanged a knowing glance before they drove away.


End file.
